Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
God sets fire from heaven to Solomon's victims and reveals to him that He has heard his prayers, so that He may hear those who pray in the temple for whatever necessity.
Vulgate Text: 2 Paralipomenon 7:1-22
1. And when Solomon had finished pouring forth his prayers, fire came down from heaven and devoured the holocausts and the victims; and the majesty of the Lord filled the house. 2. Nor could the priests enter the temple of the Lord, because the majesty of the Lord had filled the temple of the Lord. 3. Moreover all the children of Israel saw the fire descending, and the glory of the Lord upon the house; and falling down with their faces to the ground upon the pavement of stone, they worshipped and praised the Lord: For He is good, for His mercy endures forever. 4. And the king and all the people offered victims before the Lord. 5. King Solomon therefore slaughtered victims: of oxen twenty-two thousand, of rams a hundred and twenty thousand; and the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. 6. And the priests stood in their offices; and the Levites with the instruments of the songs of the Lord, which King David had made for praising the Lord: For His mercy endures forever, singing the hymns of David with their hands; and the priests sounded the trumpets before them, and all Israel stood. 7. Solomon also sanctified the middle of the court before the temple of the Lord; for he had offered there the holocausts and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar which he had made could not support the holocausts, and the sacrifices, and the fat. 8. So Solomon kept the solemnity at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the torrent of Egypt. 9. And on the eighth day he made a solemn assembly, because he had dedicated the altar for seven days, and had celebrated the solemnity for seven days. 10. Therefore on the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their tents, joyful and glad for the good that the Lord had done to David, and to Solomon, and to Israel His people. 11. And Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all that he had planned in his heart to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house, and he prospered. 12. And the Lord appeared to him by night, and said: I have heard your prayer, and I have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 13. If I shut up heaven, and there be no rain, and if I command and give orders to the locust to devour the land, and if I send pestilence among My people: 14. and My people, upon whom My name is called, being converted, shall make supplication to Me, and seek My face, and do penance for their most wicked ways: then I will hear from heaven, and will be merciful to their sins, and will heal their land. 15. My eyes also shall be open, and My ears attentive to the prayer of him who shall pray in this place. 16. For I have chosen and sanctified this place, that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart may remain there perpetually. 17. You also, if you walk before Me, as David your father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and keep My justices and My judgments: 18. I will raise up the throne of your kingdom, as I promised David your father, saying: There shall not fail you a man of your stock to be ruler in Israel. 19. But if you turn away, and forsake My justices, and My commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve strange gods, and adore them, 20. I will pluck you up out of My land, which I have given you; and this house, which I have sanctified to My name, I will cast away from before My face, and will make it a byword, and an example among all nations. 21. And this house shall be a proverb to all that pass by, and they shall say with amazement: Why has the Lord done thus to this land, and to this house? 22. And they shall answer: Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they laid hold of strange gods, and adored and worshipped them; therefore all these evils have come upon them.
I have explained this chapter in 3 Kings chapters VIII and IX.
Verse 2: Majesty
2. MAJESTY. — In Hebrew cabod, that is, glory, namely, a darkness or a splendid and glorious cloud, representing the majesty and glory of the invisible God.
Verse 6: The Priests Stood in Their Offices
6. AND THE PRIESTS STOOD IN THEIR OFFICES; in Hebrew, at their watches, that is, divided into their companies, according to the duties assigned to each by David. And the Levites stood WITH THE INSTRUMENTS OF SONG, that is, with musical instruments, singing hymns WITH THEIR HANDS — namely, playing with their hands the musical instruments, with which they sang hymns and songs, that is, the psalms composed by David for praising God.